Emily Watkins

Member of the Dean's List, class of 2023

Social action

Emily pro-actively sought to develop her skills and experience whilst at Sheffield. She gained valuable leadership experience as the Human Resources and Recruitment Director of social enterprise and former Enactus project, Motion, delivering a Chair-Based Exercise Course to student volunteers and allocating sessions for them to visit care homes and community groups. 

Emily followed her role at Motion by being elected Vice President of Business Services for Enactus. During her tenure she delivered a presentation in the Octagon to over 400 first year Management School students on the topic of entrepreneurship, as part of the Futures First employability module. She also arranged the society’s visit to the Enactus National Exposition in London, where the Sheffield team was placed in the top 10 teams in the UK. 

To expand her academic experience, Emily successfully secured a funded scholarship to conduct a research project over the summer, as part of the Sheffield Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) programme, investigating the public communications of progressive green leaders. Her work was complimented by supervisors as being “equivalent to that which I would expect of a graduate research assistant”, and Emily’s project was nominated ‘Student Research of the Year 2021’.

Taking the lead

Emily has been a strong leader and student representative during her time at University. As a University Marketing Student Panel member, Emily shared the student voice by using her critical thinking skills to help evaluate marketing strategies. She was also an Academic Representative on her course, bringing her classmates’ feedback and concerns to the Management Schools Staff-Student Committee for discussion and follow up.

In her social life, Emily was an active member of the University Rowing Club throughout her studies and took on a leadership role as the Cox Captain, delivering training to new coxes and taking her team to compete at the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) Championships.

After learning the German language to A1+ level in the Modern Languages Teaching Centre, Emily completed a placement year in the UK, at defence company MBDA, where her new language skills enabled her to form strong connections with German colleagues. Working in the commercial department, she was entrusted with a high level of responsibility, leading on projects, helping to secure bids and deliver contracts. Emily also volunteered as a mentor to school children in the company’s ‘Robot Rumble’ initiative, where she guided Year 7 students in building a robot and taking it to competition. 

As a result of her dedication to the role, Emily was awarded MBDA ‘Commercial Trainee of the Year’ and was offered a permanent position on the MBDA Commercial Graduate programme.